Tuesday 28 April 2015

There's an imbalance somewhere.

Among the many friends I have through facebook (numbers of which I keep trying to reduce) there are 2 guys who have both, quite independently, posted up about being depressed in the last 24 hours. I know both of them from the same mountainbiking circle, and we share many of the same friends.

One of them had a large number of affirming and positive (if sometimes shallow and thoughtless) comment. The other had none.

I don't understand how one of the guys could be so overlooked to the point of seemingly being ignored - and his situation is much more 'desperate' if that's the right phrase, though with depression that can have little to do with it - than the other's.

People are odd. I suspect there'll be a raft of posts now the duck is broken.

Sunday 26 April 2015

Just thinking about how hard it is to build people up.

When, if you were offering directions to get somewhere, the advice you'd give is "you'd be best not starting from here".

Friday 24 April 2015

So today Ben goes again

Down for 6 months hard labour in Turkey - I think we're going to miss him more this time round.

Monday 20 April 2015

Next years adverts

Not surprisingly, I'm starting to receive ads encouraging me to book a ski holiday for next year. It's not going to happen, but that doesn't stop me wishing.

In other news, I'm having the bizarre experience of Ben borrowing my car for a couple of days while he completes his training before heading off to Turkey as a mountain bike guide at the end of the week. It shouldn't feel strange, but it does.

Tuesday 14 April 2015

Am I about to get a new phone?

My Motorola RAZRi has been running Android 4.1.2 Jellybean for 2 years. It did an update just a couple of months after I'd bought it, and that was that, which would bother some. Most of the time it's been fine, since it did everything I expected when I bought it and that was just what I'd wanted.

Recently I'd heard that 4.4.2 Kitkat was being rolled out, with mixed reviews, but with an improvement in performance for many users. Hopefully it won't brick my phone like it has some.

Anyway, it's about 450MB, downloading now. Guess we'll find out soon enough.

*edit*
Update took about 20min download, then 20min install. Fonts and some icons are different. Swiping seems slightly smoother, but some functions seem laggy. Text message appearance has changed, and all ringtones seem to have been reset to something hideous.

Time later to dig around.

Identikit management?

There is a certain sense of amusement that the lab here is now being managed by 2 guys in their early 50s, both balding with short grey hair and grey goatee beards. He's taller than me though.

Last week I started the first of my new jobs, and this week I start the second. It's not clear what I'll be doing yet, but voyages of discovery have often been interesting.

Thursday 9 April 2015

Change is in the wind

So I'm tidying and filing at work right now.

Came across a couple of booklets from my friend Gunvor, from my last working visit to Stockholm in 2009, for a place called Sigtuna. It's another place I'd love to visit when there was opportunity, along with a few days in Stockholm itself, but there's so much to see and so little time.

We were also talking about returning to Austria again, and our last time there was literally the week before I went to Stockholm. There's a side of Austria that I've not yet seen, away from the tourists and mountains of the west.

Monday 6 April 2015

Another 9 days left.

Ben is back next Wednesday, and suddenly we're going to have to remember that we aren't young, free & married any more. And we'll need to clear his room out. At least he's getting lots of board time in before the return, judging by facebook. I'm just a little jealous, since I know my skiing career is finished, but it's OK really.

So summer has kind-of started here already too. Just wish I could enjoy the idea of a 20mile MTB ride in the evening after work.

*edit*

Or not. He's back home with us now, having finished 1 week early. 3 1/2 hours and 200 miles of driving later, we got back late this afternoon from Stanstead.

Thursday 2 April 2015

Now here's an interesting thing - answers to prayer pt.1

Business has been lean recently, and between us we'd recognised things couldn't go on like they have before we ran out of money. So yesterday, not feeling terribly spiritual (recovering from a nasty cold, which Chris now has badly) I spent the day praying & fasting to ask what we should do for the future.

There weren't angel choirs, flashes of lightning or signs in the heavens so much as a sense of "it's up to you - what would you like to do". Chris's feeling is that for all the work we have done we've had very little back and it's just not worth it, so I've pretty much committed to finding a job for, at least, some time. And that's fine - I don't really have an interest in marketing myself as the business any more, and self-confidence levels are pretty much ground-floor now.

This morning I've had 2 offers of work, for 1 and 2 days a week. 1 was semi-expected, although so often the semi-expected offers never come off that I'd pretty much stopped expecting them to be more than wishful thinking. The other was completely unexpected, and very useful.

The grace of God at work.

Now the question is what to do with what remains of the business? I am very thankful to be in this position.